The XXV Winter Universiade, took place in Erzurum, Turkey between 27 January to 6 February. Erzurum is the city at the highest altitude in Turkey, at 1,850 m (6,070 ft), and has over 320 cultural landmarks. Located in Eastern Anatolia Region, it is a city on the traditional silk road and has been governed by many cultures over the centuries. The Erzurum Ice Hockey Arena, located on the Cemal Gürsel Sports Campus, was newly built with an ice rink of 60m x 30m and 3,000 seats for spectators.

The Kandilli Ski Resort, located 36 km (22 mi) from the city center at an altitude of 1,713–1,767 m (5,620–5,797 ft) and stretching over 160 ha (0.62 sq mi) land, is the venue for biathlon and Nordic combined competitions.[3]

The Palandöken Ski Resort is located 4 km (2.5 mi) at an altitude of 3,271 m (10,732 ft). It hosts snowboarding and freestyle skiing competitions.[4]

The Kiremitlik Hill Ski Jumping Facility is situated north of Palandöken Ski Resort and south of the athletes' village. It consists of two jumping towers and two take-off ramps for large hill (K125) and normal hill (K95) competitions, as well as three more ramps (K65, K40 and K20) for training.[5]

The newly built Erzurum Universiade Ice Arena consists of two ice rinks of 30 m × 60 m (98 ft × 197 ft) different in audience capacity. The men's ice hockey matches are played in the 3000 ice rink and the women's matches in the 500 ice rink.[8]

The Milli Piyango Curling Arena is an indoor ice rink consisting of five curling sheets. Opened in September 2010, it has a seating capacity of 1,000 people.[9]

Following is a list of nations that were sent invitations to attend the Universiade:[10] Malaysia and Venezuela made their debuts. Syria was on the entry list but later withdrew; this would have marked Syria's debut. With 58 nations competing, it represented the largest amount of nations ever to compete, and increase of 8 from the previous high at the 2005 games in Innsbruck.[11] A total of 1880 athletes and 849 officials participated in the Universiade.[12] Moldova, Thailand, and San Marino who were present at the 2009 Winter Universiade in Harbin did not send athletes to the games.